Current Pro-Tobacco Activities

The Letter to the Daily Telegraph

In March 2011, Tim Knox, Acting Director, Centre for Policy Studies was one of 11 signatories of a Letter to the Editor to the Daily Telegraph attacking the Government's position on tobacco control and arguing against further restrictions.

History of Tobacco Funding

The documents show that in the mid-1970s the CPS received £1,000 a year from BAT in 1974/75 and 1975/76. [1]

The documents suggest that these payments continued until at least the mid-1990s. The amount slowly increased, so by the late-1970s, the documents suggest it was £2,000 [2] and a decade later it was £4,000. [3] By 1990, the amount was £5,000 [4]; an amount given for the next four years. [5] Although the CPS requested that BAT increase the amount to £6,000 a year, which was "still below the level of other companies of BAT's size and distinction". [6]

The issue of whether to continue to pay as well as disclose the payment to the CPS obviously became perplexing for BAT. One document prepared for BAT Chairman Martin Broughton in 1994 said: "If we cease to disclose the contribution to the CPS in the Report and Accounts for 1994 (or any subsequent year if we are still making contributions), then there must be a risk of us receiving an enquiry as to whether we are continuing to support the CPS. It might look very odd if we then say that we are, since we would be challenged as to why we have made no disclosure. I think prudence probably dictates that we continue to disclose the payment for so long as we are making it." [7]

Current Tobacco Industry Funding?

In May 2012, when the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath asked the Centre for Policy Studies whether it was currently receiving tobacco industry funding, or had received funding in the past, it received no reply to its questions. [8]

History of Working With the Tobacco Industry

Other tobacco industry documents reveal CPS has worked with the tobacco industry on environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). In the mid-1990s, Philip Morris identified the following UK based think tanks that could host an event or conference on "ETS Science/Junk Science":